Friday, January 30, 2009
Dust
Hello Family and Friends! Happy End of January! It’s been a loooooooooooooonnnnnnnng month here. One word to describe this month: dusty. Dust is everywhere you want to be. Especially being located on a “main road” (main road meaning, maybe, a car an hour passes)that is not cemented, means that whenever a car or moto passes, whoever is the fortuitous person to be next to the road is the lucky recipient of dust.
Firstly, I would like to sincerely thank family and friends for all the donations that have been given to my Peace Corps project. Words cannot express how thankful I, and my community, are. Thank you. The project is to construct a women’s and community center in the middle of town. It is a very worthwhile project for women for many reasons; 1. there are no central places to have meetings. Women need permission to leave their house to go to meetings and since the location is central they will not have to walk far. 2. There are 6 sewing machines that have been dormant for the last year. The center will hold the sewing machines and act as a work-space to learn how to sew=income generation! The center is worthwhile for men; because, once again, no neutral place to meet. About 15 years ago there were political rifts within the two dominant political parties, thwarting development in Tournignal. The village was split and the two rival fractions did not speak for many years. Still to this day an undercurrent of vengeance can slightly be felt, and the two sides rarely go into the others’ houses. Thee center will be worthwhile for everyone in the community; because it is a place to have: community events, cultural/ health seminars, and to welcome dignitaries, ambassadors etc. Last year when the Ambassador came to Tourningal we had to welcome her in my house.
Voila—mon projet. I hope to get it underway in a few weeks with the construction, especially before the rainy season commences. Besides doing the project, lately I have been busy with organizing women’s groups and teaching girls how to sew. The women’s groups is probably my passion. The natural high I get after I have helped organize and inform a group of women is immeasurable. Women generally never have the chance to work together and mobilize in village. For instance, unlike men they do not even have the right to pray together. Secondly, I will estimate that about 95% of the women I work with have never been formally educated. They do not speak nor write or read french. They have no chances to gain revenue. Most, unfortunately, do not know about birth control methods; thus, they routinely have children every 1. 5 years. Teaching family planning methods is on my agenda for this year. So, I try to inform the women about an array of topics; clean water, malaria, HIV, hygiene, etc. Yesterday some women were amazed about my lecture in regards to water drinking. No one drinks water here. We’ll see if any of them actually start drinking 1-3 L /day. In addition to teaching them health topics is the undercover goal of forming sustainable women’s groups. I hope to routinely meet with these groups over the next year to solidify their raison d’etre.
Sewing….has been a challenge. I have had to teach myself how to sew and have had to have enough self confidence to teach others how to sew with the little experience I have. The girls thoroughly enjoy the class. To see the smiles and passion they have for their finished products is priceless. We are starting on cross-stitch this week. Then go onto sewing machines. My goal is that even if the majority of these girls have to marry in the next few years, they will have learned a skill, and perhaps income generating activity, to keep them busy and help their families.
Well, that’s about it. Things have been slow. Dusty and slow. The fun of living in a place where everyone knows your name--The joys of living in a place where your every move is known by the community. Much peace and happiness, Sey yeeso, Ali
Firstly, I would like to sincerely thank family and friends for all the donations that have been given to my Peace Corps project. Words cannot express how thankful I, and my community, are. Thank you. The project is to construct a women’s and community center in the middle of town. It is a very worthwhile project for women for many reasons; 1. there are no central places to have meetings. Women need permission to leave their house to go to meetings and since the location is central they will not have to walk far. 2. There are 6 sewing machines that have been dormant for the last year. The center will hold the sewing machines and act as a work-space to learn how to sew=income generation! The center is worthwhile for men; because, once again, no neutral place to meet. About 15 years ago there were political rifts within the two dominant political parties, thwarting development in Tournignal. The village was split and the two rival fractions did not speak for many years. Still to this day an undercurrent of vengeance can slightly be felt, and the two sides rarely go into the others’ houses. Thee center will be worthwhile for everyone in the community; because it is a place to have: community events, cultural/ health seminars, and to welcome dignitaries, ambassadors etc. Last year when the Ambassador came to Tourningal we had to welcome her in my house.
Voila—mon projet. I hope to get it underway in a few weeks with the construction, especially before the rainy season commences. Besides doing the project, lately I have been busy with organizing women’s groups and teaching girls how to sew. The women’s groups is probably my passion. The natural high I get after I have helped organize and inform a group of women is immeasurable. Women generally never have the chance to work together and mobilize in village. For instance, unlike men they do not even have the right to pray together. Secondly, I will estimate that about 95% of the women I work with have never been formally educated. They do not speak nor write or read french. They have no chances to gain revenue. Most, unfortunately, do not know about birth control methods; thus, they routinely have children every 1. 5 years. Teaching family planning methods is on my agenda for this year. So, I try to inform the women about an array of topics; clean water, malaria, HIV, hygiene, etc. Yesterday some women were amazed about my lecture in regards to water drinking. No one drinks water here. We’ll see if any of them actually start drinking 1-3 L /day. In addition to teaching them health topics is the undercover goal of forming sustainable women’s groups. I hope to routinely meet with these groups over the next year to solidify their raison d’etre.
Sewing….has been a challenge. I have had to teach myself how to sew and have had to have enough self confidence to teach others how to sew with the little experience I have. The girls thoroughly enjoy the class. To see the smiles and passion they have for their finished products is priceless. We are starting on cross-stitch this week. Then go onto sewing machines. My goal is that even if the majority of these girls have to marry in the next few years, they will have learned a skill, and perhaps income generating activity, to keep them busy and help their families.
Well, that’s about it. Things have been slow. Dusty and slow. The fun of living in a place where everyone knows your name--The joys of living in a place where your every move is known by the community. Much peace and happiness, Sey yeeso, Ali
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Friday, January 2, 2009
It's been a while...Bonne Fete!
Bonne Fete 2009!!! Happy Holidays! Happy Winter! December has flown by in a flash. I have been busy. First Sister visited. The visit went as smooth as it could have gone, she can attest to that. I thank her wholeheartedly for bringing 100 lbs. of stuff for me. Watching her lumber out of the airport with her suitcases was impressive. Although she did not eat any food in village, she brought an ample supply of Luna Bars to last her a week. The end of the visit was great. We spent a few fabulous days on the black sand beaches of Limbe.
It has been quite a harsh environment here in the Adamawa these past few weeks after sis left.
1) The Weather. When I get up and go to bed it feels like Winter, an estimated, frigid 45 degrees. (Yes, I realize this should not be intolerable having grown up in Wisconsin, but especially for most of my community who do not own jackets or fleeces, it’s harsh.) Then, from 9-16 in the afternoon, it feels like the heat of summer, sans any sort of nice cool breezes or clouds. Combine the heat with violent wind and dust storms and one can imagine how pleasant it must be to live here. In addition, I have daily allergy problems to the temperamental environment, causing my eyes and nose to constantly run. People usually think I’m deathly ill.
2) The food. The food has made the environment even more fun. Due to the holiday season, and doing vaccination campaigns in the brush (going village to village vaccinating 0-11 month year olds) my diet has been abnormal. The only dish that anyone ever serves for any sort of special occasion here is rice and greasy meat sauce. This is no exaggeration. I have been fed rice and very, very greasy meat sauce probably 30 times in the past week. I have also probably been given greasy, sugary, deep fried gateaux about the same amount. Yes, I could just say no to the food that people give me. But when the only tangible way that a 100 person village, made of mud huts, can thank you for vaccinating all of its kids, and can feel honored to have thanked you, is to give you greasy meat sauce, you just feel inclined to soak it in…and take a few bites. Needless to say, my digestive tract has been very, very harsh lately and does not like me. Thank you Tums.
3) The lack of Entertainment. (I threw this one on myself my staying in village for the crux of the holiday season)
Christmas: My entertainment for Christmas was sitting in a three hour church service that was not in French. Then I got fed 3 meals of greasy meat sauce. My colleagues at the health center have made me the unofficial social chair to help alleviate them from the dearth of entertainment. SO, they came over chez moi and we had a sober fete watching fufulde movies on my laptop, accompanied by greasy meat sauce. Correction; they had a fete, while I was throwing up in my room from grease for 2 hours.
New Years: Once again I was made social chair of the evening and my colleagues came over, expecting an all-night fiesta. Although this night I did not get violently ill, I became quite vexed as the evening progressed for; a)I had to act as the undercover alcohol distributor to my colleagues that didn’t want others to know they were drinking and b)was constantly bossed around from my male colleagues to serve them. Yes, in their culture women serve men. Chez moi +during the fete= not fun.
A 3 Day Fulbe Wedding: I would say 75% of the wedding involved sitting, much of it during the cold. I have sat with Fulbe Women countless numbers of hours this past week and have a new dogma: sometimes you just got to dodge out of certain cultural events, if not, your life in a small village would truly, only be cultural events, accompanied always by greasy meat sauce.
This is the end of my rant. However irritated I may seem to be, in reality I am very, very happy and still loving my life here in Tourningal. Most of the incidences I mentioned are quite laughable. I’m busy with work, have loving, ebullient friends and “family” here who have accepted me, get to exercise outside each day under the sun, and get at least a few “I don’t want you to leave in a year” comments a day (….hoping not sarcastic). This is encouraging. Much, much love and happiness to all during the winter months. Eat some vegetables or fruit for me. May 2009 find you in health and peace.
It has been quite a harsh environment here in the Adamawa these past few weeks after sis left.
1) The Weather. When I get up and go to bed it feels like Winter, an estimated, frigid 45 degrees. (Yes, I realize this should not be intolerable having grown up in Wisconsin, but especially for most of my community who do not own jackets or fleeces, it’s harsh.) Then, from 9-16 in the afternoon, it feels like the heat of summer, sans any sort of nice cool breezes or clouds. Combine the heat with violent wind and dust storms and one can imagine how pleasant it must be to live here. In addition, I have daily allergy problems to the temperamental environment, causing my eyes and nose to constantly run. People usually think I’m deathly ill.
2) The food. The food has made the environment even more fun. Due to the holiday season, and doing vaccination campaigns in the brush (going village to village vaccinating 0-11 month year olds) my diet has been abnormal. The only dish that anyone ever serves for any sort of special occasion here is rice and greasy meat sauce. This is no exaggeration. I have been fed rice and very, very greasy meat sauce probably 30 times in the past week. I have also probably been given greasy, sugary, deep fried gateaux about the same amount. Yes, I could just say no to the food that people give me. But when the only tangible way that a 100 person village, made of mud huts, can thank you for vaccinating all of its kids, and can feel honored to have thanked you, is to give you greasy meat sauce, you just feel inclined to soak it in…and take a few bites. Needless to say, my digestive tract has been very, very harsh lately and does not like me. Thank you Tums.
3) The lack of Entertainment. (I threw this one on myself my staying in village for the crux of the holiday season)
Christmas: My entertainment for Christmas was sitting in a three hour church service that was not in French. Then I got fed 3 meals of greasy meat sauce. My colleagues at the health center have made me the unofficial social chair to help alleviate them from the dearth of entertainment. SO, they came over chez moi and we had a sober fete watching fufulde movies on my laptop, accompanied by greasy meat sauce. Correction; they had a fete, while I was throwing up in my room from grease for 2 hours.
New Years: Once again I was made social chair of the evening and my colleagues came over, expecting an all-night fiesta. Although this night I did not get violently ill, I became quite vexed as the evening progressed for; a)I had to act as the undercover alcohol distributor to my colleagues that didn’t want others to know they were drinking and b)was constantly bossed around from my male colleagues to serve them. Yes, in their culture women serve men. Chez moi +during the fete= not fun.
A 3 Day Fulbe Wedding: I would say 75% of the wedding involved sitting, much of it during the cold. I have sat with Fulbe Women countless numbers of hours this past week and have a new dogma: sometimes you just got to dodge out of certain cultural events, if not, your life in a small village would truly, only be cultural events, accompanied always by greasy meat sauce.
This is the end of my rant. However irritated I may seem to be, in reality I am very, very happy and still loving my life here in Tourningal. Most of the incidences I mentioned are quite laughable. I’m busy with work, have loving, ebullient friends and “family” here who have accepted me, get to exercise outside each day under the sun, and get at least a few “I don’t want you to leave in a year” comments a day (….hoping not sarcastic). This is encouraging. Much, much love and happiness to all during the winter months. Eat some vegetables or fruit for me. May 2009 find you in health and peace.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Thanksgiving
Happy Thanksgiving!
The last few weeks have been fun and stressful. Fun because my friend that I worked with from camp 3 years ago in California came to Tourningal for 2.5 weeks. It was quite the experience to have a “post-mate” and to have another American live life in Tourningal. Angelina, or Aissatou in Tourningal, was an amazing guest. We complimented each other incredibly—she would prepare tasty meals and help me out doing presentations and cleaning the house.
The weeks were Stressful because I had to organize a seminar for HIV/AIDS for 15 health liaisons from surrounding villages. In addition, I organized activities for International AIDS day, December 1st. Being a community health education volunteer, I see International AIDS day as a pretty important platform to lance education. Planning events and seminars is frankly fatiguing. Running around and having to organize the venue, food and drink, presenters, transport, money issues, etc not including the overall context of what will be presenting, led to many nights of not-getting-as-much-sleep-as-I-normally-get-in-village. (ok…not getting a lot of sleep here is about 7 hours/night).
I felt like the seminar was a very pivotal event for organizing my last year in Tourningal. It entailed inviting all of the health liaisons from surrounding communities that serve as educators between Tournignal’s health center and their villages. UNICEF cut funding for the health-liason program that they used to finance, thus for the past year there have been no formations or tangible ways to “motivate” the health volunteers…always a point of contention. If the volunteers do not even get money for transport how can they do presentations in rural villages that are sometimes 20 km.away or even go to Tournignal to do follow-up? The program started by UNICEF was superb from a community health perspective—forming dynamic, over individuals in every community as relays. But like so many other initiatives lanced by NGOs, this one has also seen its’ doom. Thus, one of my counterparts’ and myself thought it necessary to organize this get-together to, simply put, motivate and re-energize the workers. We did such fun things as; action plans, ways to work together as health volunteers, problems and solutions that they face; as well as, HIV/AIDS reiteration, condom demonstrations, etc. Needless to say, it really does feel worthwhile to work with these village health care educators. I love it.
For World AIDS day I unfortunately will not be in village. However, I took a very optimistic approach and put the work onto some of my counterparts in village, hoping that they will indeed follow through with my orders. All of the students in my middle school have an essay contest that they can choose to partake in revolving around how their country, community and themselves personally can improve the state of HIV/AIDS in Cameroon. I hope they do the contest.
On non-work related terms, currently, I’m in Yaounde where I just finished my mid-service health exams. It was quite the memorable experience having to do routine fecal exams. Thankfully I do have latent TB, unlike one of my PC friends here who has to start a 9 month medical process.
Today is Thanksgiving, even here in Cameroon. It was interesting explaining to the Cameroonians the history behind Thanksgiving with their history of European exploration/colonization. We are invited to an ex-pat and ex-PCV’s house for grub and good times/watching football (do not miss). I want to quickly say my thanks to so many friends and family from back home that have kept in touch. I truly feel blessed to have had this eye-opening, learning experience and only hope that my second year is as worthwhile and happy as the first. I also feel blessed for all my friends and family back home in the USA and here in Cameroon.
Happy, happy Thanksgiving. Love, ali
The last few weeks have been fun and stressful. Fun because my friend that I worked with from camp 3 years ago in California came to Tourningal for 2.5 weeks. It was quite the experience to have a “post-mate” and to have another American live life in Tourningal. Angelina, or Aissatou in Tourningal, was an amazing guest. We complimented each other incredibly—she would prepare tasty meals and help me out doing presentations and cleaning the house.
The weeks were Stressful because I had to organize a seminar for HIV/AIDS for 15 health liaisons from surrounding villages. In addition, I organized activities for International AIDS day, December 1st. Being a community health education volunteer, I see International AIDS day as a pretty important platform to lance education. Planning events and seminars is frankly fatiguing. Running around and having to organize the venue, food and drink, presenters, transport, money issues, etc not including the overall context of what will be presenting, led to many nights of not-getting-as-much-sleep-as-I-normally-get-in-village. (ok…not getting a lot of sleep here is about 7 hours/night).
I felt like the seminar was a very pivotal event for organizing my last year in Tourningal. It entailed inviting all of the health liaisons from surrounding communities that serve as educators between Tournignal’s health center and their villages. UNICEF cut funding for the health-liason program that they used to finance, thus for the past year there have been no formations or tangible ways to “motivate” the health volunteers…always a point of contention. If the volunteers do not even get money for transport how can they do presentations in rural villages that are sometimes 20 km.away or even go to Tournignal to do follow-up? The program started by UNICEF was superb from a community health perspective—forming dynamic, over individuals in every community as relays. But like so many other initiatives lanced by NGOs, this one has also seen its’ doom. Thus, one of my counterparts’ and myself thought it necessary to organize this get-together to, simply put, motivate and re-energize the workers. We did such fun things as; action plans, ways to work together as health volunteers, problems and solutions that they face; as well as, HIV/AIDS reiteration, condom demonstrations, etc. Needless to say, it really does feel worthwhile to work with these village health care educators. I love it.
For World AIDS day I unfortunately will not be in village. However, I took a very optimistic approach and put the work onto some of my counterparts in village, hoping that they will indeed follow through with my orders. All of the students in my middle school have an essay contest that they can choose to partake in revolving around how their country, community and themselves personally can improve the state of HIV/AIDS in Cameroon. I hope they do the contest.
On non-work related terms, currently, I’m in Yaounde where I just finished my mid-service health exams. It was quite the memorable experience having to do routine fecal exams. Thankfully I do have latent TB, unlike one of my PC friends here who has to start a 9 month medical process.
Today is Thanksgiving, even here in Cameroon. It was interesting explaining to the Cameroonians the history behind Thanksgiving with their history of European exploration/colonization. We are invited to an ex-pat and ex-PCV’s house for grub and good times/watching football (do not miss). I want to quickly say my thanks to so many friends and family from back home that have kept in touch. I truly feel blessed to have had this eye-opening, learning experience and only hope that my second year is as worthwhile and happy as the first. I also feel blessed for all my friends and family back home in the USA and here in Cameroon.
Happy, happy Thanksgiving. Love, ali
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